An Ohio-based technology company is suing Facebook for patent infringement, claiming it invented the platform the insanely popular social networking site uses to store and manage information.
Leader Technology claims Facebook infringes on its patent for "dynamic association of electronically stored information with iterative …

COMMENTS

Obvious troll is obvious.

"a common workflow layer that is automated with a scalable, relational database. The tool includes a relational database engine that facilitates many-to-many relationships among data elements, in addition to, one-to-many and many-to-many relationships"

Ha ha ha ha! Sounds like databases 101, circa 1990.

Apart from that, if they sue for "copyright infringement" based on a patent, they need to stop snorting bolivian nose ajax ASAP.

Bogus Patent

Just finished reading the patent.

Sourceforge.net which has been around since before 2000 is prior art. This application wasn't filed until Dec. 10, 2003 - pretty late in the game to be trying to patent groupware don't ya think? Considering they didn't invent any of the individual technologies their like to prevent others from using.

The overly vague patent covers essentially any application that 'provides a single point of contact for multiple users and resources' especially if it involves the uploading of files.

Tossers

Now obviously facebook is a load of tosh and the the internet (world?) would be a better place without it, but these a-holes look like they're suing becacuse facebook are using a database. Why do merkins like giving so much moolah to lawyers? Can I sue these morons cos they've copied my "evolving out of the pond" or "breathing oxygen" patent ?

So when did they notice?

I mean, Facebook's been around for a little while. When did someone say 'gee whiz, that concept sounds dashed familiar. Think I'll pop in and take a look. Zounds, they're using something that isn't theirs, the blighters.'

Can someone enlighten me as to what...

Can someone enlighten me as to what "a common workflow layer that is automated with a scalable, relational database. The tool includes a relational database engine that facilitates many-to-many relationships among data elements, in addition to, one-to-many and many-to-many relationships" actually means?

Because, the way I'm reading it, they should be suing Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and so on... not Facebook?

<title>

Facebook & US Patent

What a load of Patent gobbledegook - I would not be surprised to find that the US Patent Office has granted a patent along the lines of " a device which allows the transfer of information by changing the volumetric shape and size of the storage and transmission medium while simultaneously creating airflows structured to cause interference and resonance thus enabling the transmission of meaningful intelligence to a third party or other intended recipient" – alternatively they could be talking out of their arse!

Thank God (and her aids) that silly Patents are harder to get in the UK – lets hope it stays that way.

Patents

I really hate them, all I hear about them is stupid lawsuits where someone is suing someone else for writing a song, because apparently they patented music back in the 80's, or BT patented the hyper-link. Are there any good examples of patent lawsuits? Where something worthwhile was done?

Gone fishin'

Hardly new stuff

People have been doing this for years... The application was filed December 2002. This appears to be a case of patenting something operational systems were doing a long time ago.... And then trying to screw people. Sadly someone granted a patent.... When will this nonsense stop?

er.. is it just me

I'm guessing they're summarising so I'd need to read up but...

"a common workflow layer that is automated with a scalable, relational database. The tool includes a relational database engine that facilitates many-to-many relationships among data elements, in addition to, one-to-many and many-to-many relationships."

So... basically any darn application with a relational database right? I'd love to see them prove facebook wrong, then go after every other bloody website on the internet who must infringe as well. How come bebo/myspace aren't targets, do they not make enough dosh?

drowning

Read the patent.

By f*** it's vague.

What it seems to boil down to is: Data is owned by users. File systems know which user owns which data no matter where it's stored. Don't you dare load this information into a relational database to provide a user-centric view of your data or we'll sue you.

It's official. Patent trolls have got to the stage where if you want to catalogue the contents of your sock drawer, you'd best check for patent infringement before loading your list of socks into a sodding database.....

What exactly did they invent or patent?

From the abstract, this looks a lot like they describe (part of) a filesystem (folders _do_ have permission flags for users..., unless maybe you use FAT). Maybe the newish thing about it were that the whole thing shall run on a DBMS. Good job inventing something so radically new in 2006.

hmm...

Oooh, a "database" patent!

"a common workflow layer that is automated with a scalable, relational database. The tool includes a relational database engine that facilitates many-to-many relationships among data elements, in addition to, one-to-many and many-to-many relationships"

So they'll actually have to sue Oracle, IBM (for DB2), Sybase, Sun/MySQL, Firebird, PostgreSQL because all of those are capable of "many-to-may, one-to-many relationship mapping".

Of course, if the patent actually is about the coupling of a common workflow layer automated with any RDBMS ... well, they'll have to sue Sun over J2EE and subsequent Java EE 5 releases. Except um... J2EE's been around since last century.

Or SAP AG, as they do workflows. Or Notes, which I think also uses an RDBMS. Or GroupWise. Hell, even Microsoft has a "common workflow layer using RDBMS" under the name of Microsoft CRM (or whatever its called now) with their offerings!

This would mark a first, I actually hope that Facebook wins this stupid patent troll lawsuit!

By George there's not even software involved this time!

The problem is patently obvious but surely there must be some point of no return when the US patent office gets fed up with being the laughing stock of the world and decides to sort itself out, or are they all on huge retainers from law firms?